In an op-ed for the Telegraph, Lord Frost considers the paradox of ‘Apple Airtags’, and how Labour’s paternalistic policies resonate with a nation oscillating between a ‘nanny state’ and the call for individual responsibility. Here’s an excerpt:
Those of us who have spent our lives in and around SW1 have been known to become out of touch with the delights and dilemmas of everyday life in the rest of our country.
That is where the Lifestyle section of this great newspaper comes in. It is not, of course, primarily written for genuine fashionistas, foodies or internet ‘influencers’, whatever they may be, but for people like me who want to retain some sort of awareness of what normal non-obsessed-with-politics middle Britain is thinking. Out there in the Cotswolds, on the Suffolk coast, in the Yorkshire Dales, what are you eating, where are you travelling, how are you bringing up your families?
Even so, assiduous reader that I am, every so often I will read something that at first seems so weird, so alien, so different from the world as I have known it, that I’m left gasping.
Such, dear reader, was yesterday’s article suggesting that real people – actual sentient young adults – are willing to travel the world with an Apple Airtag attached to their baggage – so that their parents can see where they are at any moment, be it bar, beach or any of those more dubious spots that young people have been known to frequent on their travels.
Reading this, most people my age will, after a moment of horror and disbelief, bring back to mind some pleasant half-forgotten memories from those 1980s Interrail trips, give heartfelt thanks that we were born in the pre-digital era and move on.
But being a reflective sort of person, I paused further. Maybe this is not so strange. Maybe it reflects the sort of country we have become.
Deborah Meaden of Dragons’ Den fame, still seemingly coming to terms with the post-Brexit world, tweeted yesterday: “I want the grown-ups back.” That phrase is used a lot. Many people say that they look forward to a time when the ‘adults in the room’ are in charge again.
These are revealing phrases. They suggest the right relationship of the people to the government is like that of children to parents. As when a kids’ party gets out of hand, they want the grown-ups to show up and make everything right again. All too many seem to want this kind of government: the benevolent if controlling parent that takes care of everything important in life, leaving us just pocket money to have fun with.
Can’t have children? The Government should pay for IVF. Fat and unhealthy? Blame lack of regulation and Big Food. Ageing parents? Don’t expect me to use my inheritance to pay for it – the state should stump up. Lost your job and want new skills? The Government should pay for you to acquire them. Want fresh water and clean chalk streams? Make the water companies pay, not me, but don’t let them build any new pipes or reservoirs. Can’t afford your rent? The Government should bring in rent controls. Can’t afford your energy bill? The Government should subsidise it.
And of course – want to be protected from a new virus? The Government should lock us all in our homes to keep us safe.
This is the politics of childhood. And it comes with the downside of childhood: you have to do what your parents tell you. Under their roof, you live your life by their standards, not yours.
Worth reading in full.
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The ever repeated phrase: ‘The Government should do something.’
Instead the Government should do less and let people do more.
A comment so good, it could have come from the lips of Milton Friedman!
I remember when this nannying crap got going. In the 1990s, John Major kicked it off big time and it went into overdrive with New Labour. There was a sense that something repressive was beginning in our country: there were lots more orders coming from above and announcements were given an increasingly catastrophist slant. Of course, we went on to become the third most surveilled citizenry in the world after Red China and N Korea and the most surveilled in the ‘free world’! I really despise it! It will ultimately drive me away from being involved with other people, because I loathe being ordered around. I was a ‘good boy’ at school in the 1980s, because I believed I would get my freedom in adulthood. And I did… for a while, before post-Soviet era Western governments fell in love with micromanaging people’s lives!!
It is already way more sinister than simply “lecturing, hectoring and nannying”, which makes it sound like there are benign intentions and nanny is being a bit overzealous. It will get more sinister still, here and everywhere, unless people wake up.
Absolutely agree tof.
I never understood how people in Whitehall could know whats best for me. I know whats best for me, and I suspected everyone is the same. Looks like life if too complicated for a lot of people and being told what to do is the obvious solution.
I was chatting with one of my 30 something staff today and we drifted into this very conversation. Her comment was, ‘Look I can see where this is heading and I dont want to think about it. I can’t do anything to stop it, I’m just going to try and be happy for as long as I can.’ Think there are lots of people like her..?
Most people I know are like that, yes.
This 100% resonates with my experience. I have never understood why such a high percentage of people put their trust and faith in politicians and bureaucrats.
Rather than a politician who thinks (and pronounces) that he knows all the answers (when most so obviously don’t), I’d rather one who admits the limitations to his knowledge and expertise, but has the wisdom and good judgement to pick the best advisors and the inquisitorial skills to use their input to make good decisions.
Unfortunately, that would require them to have humility – a rare trait in our leaders these days.
She certainly can’t do anything to stop it if she remains apathetic. I can’t stop it on my own, but I CAN do “my little bit” towards trying to stop it.
I am using cash. I withdraw small amounts of cash from one of the 3 cash points in my vicinity several times a week. I tell people – in the form of a light-hearted comment – WHY I’m using cash: “I’m a member of the awkward squad and I’m doing my little bit against the cashless society they’re trying to force on us.”
Encourage your employee to fight back.
I’m afraid so.
Meaden really is a tiresome old trout, isn’t she?
yes
Certainly highlights how warped our mindsets have become. The first clue is the assumption by governments that they are ‘in power’ rather than ‘in office’. We have therefore already tacitly accepted that we have handed our sovereign power over to them. This is totally irresponsible on our part. They are there to carry out their contractual commitment to us, the contract being their manifesto and our agreement to it. Any deviation from that manifesto is a breach of contract and renders it void, with immediate recall.
It’s not just Labour, the Conservative government is just as bad, probably worse.